Today's NaPoWrMo prompt #6 is Converse with Images.
I'm not big on keeping photo albums or shoe boxes full of Polaroids, but I do have this ancient, battered poster reprint of Flaming June that I never got rid of, mostly due to ennui. When I was working as a massage therapist, it hung in my office. I would stare it a lot while I efflerlaged and pettrisaged away, and in those years, I came to understand much about our dear June.
June in the Springtime
Damp June sticky-frenetic everything about her too big for that chair but: this is her restless place-- where shes goes to feel herself cramped in. There are those who think her peaceful but I say: can't you see when a woman's near to bursting. The whole of June bunched, up nowhere for her legs and hair, nowhere for the overheated spillage of her skin and June would like to hog the bed, June would like to flop, fan out, molt from underneath those flutes and ruffles, to rub her nape with ices, dear god even her toes are too hot on those tiles. I wish a cool white bed for June, I wish white netting over it, I wish white cotton sheets, the whole room crisp as lilies. June with a knack for roses, June brilliant at cross-stitch, June who never shows her temper.
June who wears only orange in Springtime.
--Kristen McHenry
9 comments:
Kristen,
This is just lovely as all of your writings.I just read the history behind this painting and the people such as Luis Miguel a famous singer here in Mexico who have sung about this painting.
Pamela
Beautiful build up at the end.
Lovely Painting ,lovely verse.
Excellent!
She does look uncomfortable. Astute massage therapist and poet.
Right there on the head of any pin, yet again, just as self evident and clear to see. Just excellent!
(Pardon, that comment above was for the poem before, although really it could apply to all I've yet seen.)
More specific to Flaming June, I note in afterthought, after so many fine lines, "near to bursting" themselves, that your poem also "looks" physically just like the painting does! (So do you meditate bunches and bunches?)
Thanks for leaving a comment on my poem!
I should say that your prose poem really shown that contained energy. Really like your choice of words the way they feel spread out, "flop", "fan", "flutes and ruffles". I enjoyed it very much.
@ bearlyaudible--No, I don't meditate anymore. Long story...I probably should, because I am a nervous wreck sort of person, but I don't.
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